Luke 3 - Waiting Well: Embracing the Silence before the Savior

FCF: Waiting Well for Jesus

Sermon Opening:

There is a difficult moment that we live in. We are familiar with grief and heartbreak and yet hopeful about Jesus.

How do we live in the tension between the now and the not yet.

I’m titling this sermon Waiting Well: Embracing the Silence before the Savior.

Text Opening:

Here in Luke chapter 3, we see the preparation for the ministry of Jesus through the voice of John the Baptist.

This passage reveals a time of waiting for God’s promise to be fulfilled. It emphasizes a call to repent and the significance of baptism.

Repentance and Baptism as we’ll see are marks of the waiting in the silence before the savior.

Point 1:Prepare in the Desert

Luke 3:1–6 NIV

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene—during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet: “A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. And all people will see God’s salvation.’ ”

Explain:

In the wilderness is often a profound silence. John is in the desert preparing the way for Jesus.

The desert, the wilderness in scripture is often a metaphor that reminds the people of the difficulty of wandering in the desert during the exodus. The desert is not an easy place.

In the desert that we will revert back to what we know and have practiced.

Nobody rises to the occasion. In stressful times we revert back to what we’ve practiced.

If we have practiced being faithful we will be faithful. IF we haven’t build practices of faithfulness we will struggle in the silence.

In the desert we embrace the silence before the savior.

How we wait will be determined on how we’ve practiced.

Point 1: Prepare in the Desert.

John is out there living in the desert. It wasn’t a short time in the desert, it was a long time.

Luke 1:80 NIV

The boy, John, grew and became strong in spirit; and he lived in the wilderness until he appeared publicly to Israel.

When the word of the Lord finally came to John it was a word of baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

There’s a bunch of these theological words here, baptism, repentance, forgiveness of sins. I want to break them down.

The word repent in Greek is metanoia. It literally means to change your mind.

John tells the Jewish people - change your mind and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins.

John didn’t invent baptism. Baptism was a way of bringing gentiles into the Jewish religion. Is was a ritual to cleanse gentiles from their defilement as gentiles.

This is the sting of John’s words. He tells the Jews, your thoughts are so wrong that its like you need to convert to a whole new religion.

Baptism is a ritual showing that you’ve moved from your old religion to this new one.

John is telling them to change their minds, and be baptized because of their sins.

Today we talk about the forgiveness of sins as though it is available now. It is, praise God. It’s easy to forget though how radical this idea was when John the Baptist and Jesus came on the scene.

The idea that sins could be forgiven today was mind blowing. In Jewish thought, sins would be forgiven at the end times.

Forgiving sins didn’t happen until God upended the world.

We understand that Jesus came offers forgiveness of sins. He upended the world. That’s the radical nature of Jesus.

We have these theological words, repent, forgive, baptism, let me connect this next section.

Then Luke quotes Isaiah 40:3-5 to situated John.

Read Luke 3:4-6

Luke 3:4–6 NIV

As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet: “A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. And all people will see God’s salvation.’ ”

John in the wilderness is preparing the way for Jesus. He is making straight roads for people to know Jesus. He’s doing so in a difficult place.

The idea that it would be easy for all people, including gentiles, was unheard of.

Here is what I want to say for us.

If John had not spent years preparing in the desert, then he wouldn’t be able to prepare the way for Jesus.

By doing the difficult things, John has prepared for the task at hand.

Illustrate:

For us today, Jesus is coming. I’m not talking about the second coming when the end will come.

Jesus is coming into our lives now. In the coming minutes, hours, days, and weeks, Jesus is coming, he always is. How are we preparing for his arrival.

As the Church we’ve spent far too much time thinking about Jesus eternal arrival and not nearly enough time on his arrival now.

Imagine a ship preparing for a long voyage. The captain ensures the sails are ready, the crew is trained, and the supplies are stocked, yet if they never actually set sail,

the journey waits in vain.

Often, we're in this cycle of preparation for Jesus' return, almost like we're hesitating to embark on our spiritual journeys in the present.

The ship is us, our faith keeping us afloat—Jesus is not just the destination; He wants us to navigate this ocean of life with Him. Are we prepared to set sail today, not just tomorrow?

Apply:

Jesus arrival is eminent. Not in the second coming in the present. He is here and available today.

We prepare ourselves in the desert to set sail with Jesus today.

John’s call was to repent, change your mind, be baptized, go through the ritual of becoming something different because of your sin.

These are the preparations we make in the wilderness to receive Jesus.

John was here to make the path easy. He made mountains low and filled in valleys so that coming to Jesus would be easy.

John was preparing the people to receive Jesus.

What if John was speaking to you today, you need to change your mind, repent.

Your life has been hard, all of ours have been hard. We’ve been through difficult seasons in the desert. John says, repent change your mind.

What do you need to repent, to change your mind about? What new belief do you need? What sin do need forgiveness?

If something came to mind. Take a moment, jot a short note. Give a quick text to yourself and this week, take 15 minutes to think through how you are preparing to receive Jesus.

For John, they people around him didn’t receive this word as easily as you have today.

When the people around John heard this, they got mad and he got mad. Check this out.

Point 2: Produce Real Change

Luke 3:7–14 NIV

John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” “What should we do then?” the crowd asked. John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.” Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?” “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them. Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?” He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”

Explain:

How did the Jews respond to being told to be baptized like gentiles?

We don’t have the words but, Luke records John saying, “don’t begin to say to yourselves, we have Abraham.

The Jews looked to their history as a way of covering themselves. They didn’t need to repent because of their history.

The Jews pride about their past stopped them from being able to admit their sins.

The book of Matthew identifies the crowd here as pharisees. The religious leaders. Us religious leaders are susceptible to relying on past faithfulness. Luke here identifies not the Pharisees but just the general crowd. We’re all capable of letting our pride stop us from admitting our sins.

John goes on and says their history, whether pharisee or not, didn’t matter because they didn’t have fruit. John says, every tree that isn’t fruitful is cut down.

We can’t rely on our past faithfulness.

Point 2: Produce Real Change

This point is about being fruitful in our change.

There is a terrible wordplay here, between fruit and Produce real change. Produce Produce, like the produce isle.

I told you it’s bad.

Our repentance is not just about changing our mind and being sorry. It’s about living in a new way.

We all know people who claim to want to be different and then continue to do the exact same thing.

John is telling the crowd produce real change.

The crowds ask him what should we do? How do we be fruitful?

He gives three instructions to the crowd he says share with the poor, share your shirts and your food.

To the tax collectors those who made their money off of extorting more than the government needed he said take only what is proscribed.

To the Soldiers who used violence to enrich themselves he said to stop the extortion and be satisfied with your wages.

All three groups are called to produce real change.

That is true for us today.

Illustrate:

Imagine a toddler. When they learn to walk they bump into stuff. They grab onto to whatever is available.

Imagine if I as 35 year old man walked around like toddler. If I bumped into everything and grabbed onto whatever was right at hand.

For all the walking I’ve done I haven’t actually grown at all. There’s no real change.

I’d be a jerk. You would tell me to grow up.

Apply:

For some of us in here, in your faith your walking around like a toddler.

Nobody knows if your repentance was real because there is not change.

We all know people who say they want to be different but they never make any change.

Is that you in your faith?

John demands that the crowd around him bear fruit worthy of repentance.

Let me ask you are you bearing fruit worthy of repentance?

Is your life and faith different today than it was a year ago. If not, you have a problem. Your not growing. So, grow up and be frutiful.

Stop relying on past faithfulness.

When the people heard John say this they got excited about the Messiah. They recognized something new was happening among them.

Point 3: Pursue Expectant Fulfillment

Luke 3:15–22 NIV

The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah. John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” And with many other words John exhorted the people and proclaimed the good news to them. But when John rebuked Herod the tetrarch because of his marriage to Herodias, his brother’s wife, and all the other evil things he had done, Herod added this to them all: He locked John up in prison. When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

Explain:

John has just yelled at these people about being a brood of vipers and they get excited for the messiah.

As a Friends Church we have done a terrible job at teaching Friends theology.

John baptized with water and he says somebody else is coming who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. He’s talking about Jesus.

Point 3: Pursue Expectant Fulfillment

The people thought John was the Messiah and they were filled with expectation.

John pointed them beyond himself to the greater that was coming.

I want to take a moment and teach through the Friends theology on baptism and communion - they flow from the same space.

There are these things we can do with elements and there is the greater that Jesus does with the Spirit.

The elements that we use in baptizing with water and the elements we use with communion with bits of bread. Those are symbols and shadows that if we are not careful will miss the fulfillment in Jesus.

Friends theology is that Christ is available today to ALL of us. This was a radical position in the 1600s when Christ was thought to have to be mediated by a priest. Friends were some of the earliest people to recognize the availability of Jesus to all.

Jesus is available today to baptize you with the holy spirit. We don’t need water for baptism. John says somebody greater is coming who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. We don’t need John’s baptism when we have Jesus’. The same is true for communion - We have Jesus Christ here today. He will baptize us with the holy spirit and commune with us in the fellowship of the potluck meal.

For the first 180 years of the church. Communion was a shared meal. 1 Corinthians where Paul corrects the Corinthian church on communion it is about meal together where the rich ate all the food and let the poor go hungry. Communion for Paul was all people sharing a meal together. Jesus never intended communion to be a piece of bread and a gulp of juice. The early church shared meals together as communion. Friends theologically have done the same.

This is my third point: Pursue Expectant Fulfillment.

Here is the encouragement I want to give you: Don’t pursue shadows and symbols when you can pursue the real thing.

The message of John was radical. It resulted in him in prison. Our message should be no less radical.

The expectant fulfillment is the radical incarnation of Jesus Christ into our lives and lived realities.

He is here enjoy him, you don’t need the symbols of him, enjoy him.

To live in the reality that Jesus is present and fills every moment with meaning is what it means to pursue the expectant fulfillment.

Elton Trueblood was called the greatest living theologian during his life in the 50-80s - he was a Friend, a Quaker, he taught down in Oskaloosa at William Penn. Because of this point that we have the expectant fulfillment, he said, “ours is a sacramental universe.” He meant every moment can be filled with Jesus Christ.

Illustrate:

Picture a world where every mundane chore becomes an opportunity for heartfelt connection with God. Washing dishes? Imagine doing it in gratitude, reflecting on the blessings in your life. Walking to work? Picture each step as a prayer of praise. When we recognize that Jesus infuses our routine activities with meaning, our perspective shifts. Life becomes richer, and we start seeing His hand in everything, even in the smallest tasks. Ours is a sacramental universe

Apply:

We’re about to go into the potluck. Jesus is meeting us here. At his baptism the father declared over him. You are my son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.

Today, Jesus is seeking to fulfill you.

Your life, each moment, Jesus is looking to provide a sense of meaning and connection with him. Every moment is imbued with him.

After we close here I want you to experience this meal this communal meal as communion. That’s what it is and what Paul and Jesus intended it to be.

Closing:

Here’s what we’ve seen:

Prepare in the Wilderness

Produce Real Change

Pursue Expectant Fulfillment

When Jesus shows up something radical happens. the world has waited in expectation for his arrival and nothing is ever the same.

The same is true for us today.

We prepare in the wilderness. Our hearts become ready for real transformation as we wait in difficult times and places for Jesus to come.

In the waiting we Produce Real Change.

We are not merely waiting but our metanoia, our repentance, our minds are changed as we expect Jesus arrival.

We Pursue Expectant Fulfillment

When Jesus arrives it radically transforms everything we do.

John baptized with water, but with Jesus we have something so much better.

He fills every moment with meaning. Ours is a sacramental universe. We no longer have to pursue shadows because we have the substance.

We do not wait like John. John had to wait because Jesus had not yet come. We wait only as a practice, for we have Jesus with us today. He his here.

Closing Application:

In light of Jesus arrival in our lives. we are going to go into a time of celebration and authentic communion. Join us down stairs for the communal potluck.

We’re going to close with a song. Then we’ll head down stairs. Join us in praising God who is here today.